The Opinions of Jérôme Coignard (French: Les Opinions de M. Jérôme Coignard) was published by Calmann-Lévy in 1893, the same year as At the Sign of the Reine Pédauque. The sequel continues the adventures of Tournebroche and the Abbé Coignard through eighteenth-century France, with Coignard’s philosophical observations becoming more explicitly political and social.
The “opinions” of the title are Coignard’s running commentary on everything he encounters: the justice system (corrupt), the Church (hypocritical), the aristocracy (parasitic), the common people (credulous), the philosophers (self-deluded), and human nature in general (incurable). His observations are delivered with a wit and precision that recall La Rochefoucauld and Voltaire — the tradition of French moral observation to which France himself belonged.
The sequel also develops the picaresque plot: Coignard’s adventures become more dangerous as his enemies multiply and his indiscretions accumulate. The novel moves toward his death — killed in a brawl that arises from his amorous entanglements — which Tournebroche narrates with a combination of grief and bewilderment. Coignard’s death is both meaningless (he dies in a squalid fight over a woman) and significant (he dies as he lived, refusing to be governed by prudence or respectability).
France uses the character of Coignard to express his own philosophical positions — skepticism, tolerance, anti-clericalism, and a deep pessimism about human nature tempered by an equally deep love of human pleasure — without the constraint of maintaining authorial dignity.
Collecting The Opinions of Jérôme Coignard
First edition (Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1893): French text, original wrappers.
Market values:
- French first edition, fine: $30–$80
- First English translation: $15–$40